Knowing of the everyone's unhappiness over the lake's unappetizing look this year, the authority announced last week that it will begin a concerted effort to control watermilfoil.

Berger said these efforts will be based on the research the authority has done in the past year, including it work with scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station and Western Connecticut State University. That collaboration has yielding information about the best conditions for killing watermilfoil; about the use of weevils to control it; and an annual mapping project to see how the weed's growth expands and contracts around the lake.

The initiative is also based on research authority members have done on deep draw-downs -- the every-other-year effort to kill the weeds by lowering the lake by at least 10 feet. That exposes the watermilfoil near the shore to winter cold and wind that kill it.

That research shows that deep draw-downs in the 1980s and 1990s lasted about two months from early January through February. Watermilfoil control was much more effective in those year, according to Larry Marsicano, the authority's executive director.

In recent years, draw-downs have been much shorter, lasting only a few weeks before the owner of the lake -- now FirstLight Power Resources Inc. -- began filling the lake again.

"The last deep draw-down we had, in 2009, only lasted a couple of weeks,'' Marsicano said.

Therefore, the authority has now asked FirstLight to go back to the longer schedule, and Marsicano said, the company is receptive to the idea.

The authority will soon establish a space on its website -- www.candlewoodlakeauthority.org -- to be a clearinghouse for all the information it has about the watermilfoil issue on the lake. Berger said the authority hopes to have the site ready by mid-October.

First Selectman John Hodge of New Fairfield -- who is now a member of a the authority -- said Monday he likes the approach on the initiative. But he also said that authority might considered doing two deep draw-downs in a row to provide some additional control of the weeds.

In comparison to 2010, Hodge said, there was almost no watermilfoil in the lake in 2009. That was a cool summer, following a deep draw-down -- the opposite of this summer.

"Let's have a draw-down and keep it down,'' he said. "Then, let's wait until the summer of 2011, and see how it compares to the summer of 2009.''